Table football

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This is about the game using players on rods. Table football/soccer is also a generic term of the game known colloquially as Subbuteo.
Table football (Bonzini style table).
Table football (Bonzini style table).

Table football, or alternately foosball, is a table-top game that is based on association football (soccer). Table football is normally called foosball in the United States and Canada.

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[edit] Names

The most common names in English are table football and foosball, though table soccer is also used.

Table football is generally known as Tischfußball or kickern in German.[1] In Italy it is known as calcio balilla or bigliardino or biliardino (from "biglia", little ball) or even calcetto (less common). In México it is known as futbolito, in Argentina it is known as metegol, in Chile it is known as taca-taca, in Spain, Colombia and Costa Rica it is known as futbolín, in Guatemala it is called futío, in some other Spanish-speaking countries being futbol de mesa or futbolito, although the latter might also refer to football played on a smaller field, in Hungary as csocsó, in Croatia as 'stolni nogomet', in Portugal as matraquilhos, in Brazil as pebolim or totó, in Turkey as langırt and among French-style players is known as babyfoot.[1]

Foosball is also spelled "foozball, foozeball, fooseball".

[edit] History

Patents exist from as far back as the 1890s (see the external links section for more detail). The history of Table Football began when Alejandro Finisterre thought of making a form of soccer that would be fun for children who could not play actual soccer. So he commissioned Francisco Javier Altuna to build it for him, thus the first foosball table.

In 2002, the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) was established in France with the mission of promoting the sport of Table Soccer as an organizing sports body, regulating international competitions, and establishing the game with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an officially recognized Olympic sport.

[edit] The game

A goalkeeper
A goalkeeper

To start play, the ball is served through a hole at the side of the table, or simply placed by hand at the feet of a figure in the middle of the table. This is usually the red player (or the side of the player where coins are thrown in). Players attempt to use figures mounted on rotating bars to kick the ball into the opponent's goal. A ball may travel at speeds up to 64 km/h (40 mph) in competition.[citation needed]

Ball control
Ball control

Some rules consider "360-degree shots" or "spinning" (using the palm of the hand to rapidly spin the bar all the way around, instead of using wrist action to kick the ball with a bar-mounted figure) illegal, although this is not always the case.

The winner is determined when one team scores a predetermined number of goals, typically five, ten or eleven in competition.

Foosball tables can vary in size, but a typical table is about 120 cm (4 ft) long and 61 cm (2 ft) wide. The table usually contains 8 rows of "foos-men", which are plastic, metal, wooden, or sometimes carbon-fibre figures mounted on horizontal metal bars. Each team of 1, 2, or 3 human players controls 4 rows of foos-men.

The arrangement is standard. Looking from left to right on one side of the table;

Row 1 Goalkeeper 1 foosman
Row 2 Defense 2 foosmen (sometimes 3)
Row 3 Opponent's attack 3 foosmen (sometimes 2)
Row 4 Midfield 5 foosmen (sometimes 4 or 6)
Row 5 Opponent's midfield 5 foosmen (sometimes 4 or 6)
Row 6 Attack 3 foosmen (sometimes 2)
Row 7 Opponent's defense 2 foosmen (sometimes 3)
Row 8 Opponent's goalkeeper 1

Foosball can also be played with four people in "doubles" style, in which there are teams of two people on either side. In this scenario, one player can control the two defensive rows and the other team member uses the midfield and attack rows.

[edit] Competition

Table football on Tornado in New York
Table football on Tornado in New York

Table football is often played for fun in pubs, bars, workplaces, schools, and clubs with few rules. Foosball is also played in official competitions organized by a number of national organizations, with highly evolved rules and regulations. Organized competition can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s in Europe. But the professional tours and bigtime money events began when the founding father of modern professional table soccer, Lee Peppard of Seattle, Washington, United States announced a "quarter million dollar tour" in 1975. Peppard went on to award several million dollars in prize monies and since his Tournament Soccer Organization went out of business in 1981 several orgs and promoters have continued holding large purse professional table soccer events worldwide. The ITSF regulates International events including the yearly World Championships and the World Cup held to coincide with the FIFA World Cup every four years. In 2006, Austria, Germany and Belgium took the Gold, Silver and Bronze respectively.

[edit] Tables

A Garlando style table with a game in progress
A Garlando style table with a game in progress
An 11-per-side Leonhart table football game in Berlin
An 11-per-side Leonhart table football game in Berlin

A vast number of different tables exist. The table brands used on the world tour and official ITSF tournaments are "French-style" Bonzini, "American-style" Tornado, "Italian-style" Roberto Sport and Garlando, "German-style" Tecball. Other major brands include Kicker, Rosengart, Jupiter Goldstar, Eurosoccer, Löwen-Soccer, Warrior, Lehmacher, Leonhart, and Smoby. There was also a 7-meter table created by artist Maurizio Cattelan for a piece called Stadium. It takes 11 players to a side. Another unique foosball set is the Opus Table created by the Elevenforty company. Each table is hand-crafted, and each foosman is made to resemble his on-field counterpart.

Differences in the table types have great influence on the playing styles. Most tables have one goalie whose movements are restricted to the goal area. On some of these tables the goalie becomes unable to get the ball once it is stuck out of reach in the corner; others have sloped corners to return the ball. Other tables have three goalies, one in the center and one in each corner to reach the ball so sloped corners are not needed. Another major difference is found in the balls, which can be made of cork, plastic, wood or even marble and metal, varying the speed of shots a great deal, as well as the "grip" between the man and the ball.

[edit] Robots

Robots designed to play table soccer by roboticists at the University of Freiburg are claimed to be able to beat 85 percent of casual players. They use a camera from below a transparent table base to track the ball, and an electronic control system to control high torque motors to rotate and move the foosmen. Currently an expert player can beat the robot 10 games to 1. [1]. Another table football robot, Foosbot, is claimed to have never been beaten by a human, but has not been tested against expert players. Yet another table football robot is under development by two students at the Technical University of Denmark. The robot uses a camera mounted above an ordinary table [2].

[edit] In popular culture

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Foosball tables have figured prominently in a number of movies such as Foos: Be the Greatest (2006, USA) and Longshot (1981, USA).
  • In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Forrester and Frank told how they took a foosball table, caulked it, filled it with water, and turned it into a water polo game.
  • In the TV show House, Dr. House and Dr. Wilson are often seen playing the game in the doctor's lounge.
  • In the TV series Zoey 101, characters are often seen playing the game in the PCA lounge.
  • The German movie Absolute Giganten features an interestingly filmed game.
  • The characters Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing from the Friends TV show (1994-2004, USA) often play table football. The sitcom featured a Dynamo table in earlier seasons, and later a Tornado (Valley) brand table, each of which was central to many episodes.
  • Table football figures prominently as a Scottish bar sport in the short story "Kingdom of Fife" by Irvine Welsh.

A professional Table Football player is Gary Pfeil. He was the five time National Champion and the winner of the 1st International Table Soccer Tour.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b BFA - Table Football

[edit] External links

International and national federations